Disney closes down Lucas Artshttp://forum.devmaster.net/t/disney-closes-down-lucas-arts/23135
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I know they haven't done anything in a while, but it's still kind of sad.
I don't think Disney really gets games. They know movies, but games, they just see as advertisement.
Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:04:15 +0000loungeDisney closes down Lucas Arts@silkroadgame wrote:

If a person's appetite is too big,his stomach would be exploded! The same as a company!So,this is a predictable result. I hope Disney could focus their energy on making great animations for audiences.

For me Star Trek was always low budget, (even when it they spent lot's of money on it). The Star Trek universe seemed to be flexible. Rules and relationships would change to fit whatever idea the writer of that particular episode had come up with.

There was no consistency in the writing, which for me ruined it. The characters in the next generation I found flat and boring. DS9 I have no idea what the point was. Voyager was slightly better, but it just didn't work for me.

The games that came out of that were the same, they just didn't work for me. It wasn't poor quality coding that ruined them, it was poor quality design.

Star Wars had a much more consistent universe. The rules all hung together well, relationships were fixed and understandable, the technology made sense, all was good.

Then the second trilogy came out, and something went wrong. All the things I loved about the first trilogy seemed to be blurred and fuzzy. The acting didn't work for me. Then some kind of desperation to make money hit the company and they started doing those awful cartoons.

The games that came out of Star Wars seemed much better than anything that came out of Star Trek. All the good ones were developed out of house, but by good people.

I've worked on licences before, and some of the rules that the licence holders come up with are just ridiculous. Maybe it's these rules that end up ruining the game, after all if you allowed James T Kirk to be killed in the first five minutes of a game they wouldn't be happy.

Some of the best Star Wars games I've played were developed by other studios, such as SW:KOTOR from Bioware and Jedi Knight from Raven soft. Heh, in fact when I think of Lucas Arts I think of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango, not Star Wars.

Originally, Lucas did not let Lucasarts touch Star Wars as he felt games weren't high-brow enough (..but toys were..), and that lead to games such as .. well, most of the good stuff we remember from them. Then, at some point, the gears were switched and apparently they weren't allowed to do anything else BUT Star Wars. I don't know if LucasArts actually managed to make anything good with them themselves; the best stuff really does seem to have come from outside (like TIE fighter, developed outside).@TheNut

The question is, will they ignore the franchise like Paramount did with Star Trek (prior to bringing Abrams on-board)

Star Trek had been on a decline for a while, and the market was really tired with it. After fighting with Babylon 5 for mindshare with deep space 9 (already being reactive instead of making something truly new), I think they tried to launch one more series which just didn't fly - but I'm a bit hazy on this front as I haven't really followed it. My point here is, though, that they did try, but didn't have a good vision.

What, exactly, has lucasarts done for the past 10 years? or 20? =) They've mostly sat on licenses of their old games as company policy and churned out unmemorable star wars games.

That was George Lucas. He hasn't done anything in ages and neither did his companies. He sold it to Disney, which is basically a corporate raider, to gut what they can from it. No, they haven't done anything since Lucas actually cared about doing something original instead of sitting on his holdings. Most of the creative minds have already left anyway. Disney will farm out the licenses and hopefully someone will do something interesting. Disney closed their games division because Epic Mickey 2 was a failure, and that's all it takes for them now. I'm sure all the suits wouldn't let them make a decent sequel. It's like Pirates of the Caribbean, it can only be bigger but more of the same until no one can stand it anymore.

I'd say I'm on the fence with this. It's never a good thing to lose your job, but the Lucas companies haven't really outputted anything of quality for the past couple years (decade?). Some of the best Star Wars games I've played were developed by other studios, such as SW:KOTOR from Bioware and Jedi Knight from Raven soft. Heh, in fact when I think of Lucas Arts I think of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango, not Star Wars. I think they had their time and it's good to give those willing to pay the licensing fees a fresh take on it. Disney is a very competent company and I'm certain they know what they're doing. The question is, will they ignore the franchise like Paramount did with Star Trek (prior to bringing Abrams on-board) or will they take it seriously and try to reboot interest. Bioware's SW:KOTOR enjoyed critical acclaim, but so did their Mass Effect. Between the two, I would say Mass Effect appeals more to my sci-fi interests than Star Wars. Many gamers I know feel the same, so originality is still something to reckon with.